


Time and Healing

by fields_of_falafel



Series: Femslash February 2017 [13]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Recovery, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9705962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fields_of_falafel/pseuds/fields_of_falafel
Summary: In which Sansa and Jon retake Winterfell from the Boltons, and Sansa finds an old friend to be much different than who she used to be.





	

Years had passed since Sansa had laid eyes on Jeyne. And now, she horribly wished she hadn’t.

Jeyne had suffered for years at the hand of Ramsay Bolton, abused in every sense of the word since she was fifteen years old. Sansa hadn’t fared much better, or so she’d thought until her and Jon retook Winterfell. Jeyne had hid herself in one of the closets in an abandoned corner of the keep with tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, dear.” Sansa said once she saw the crying girl who she’d just found in the closet, who she did not yet recognize. The girl looked horrible with her black eye, swollen lip, and bruises running up and down every visible part of her body.

The girl huddled into herself as soon as the door opened, whimpering all the while.

“I’m not here to hurt you.” Sansa extended her hand as a source of comfort and yet the girl flinched regardless.

She tried a different tactic, kneeling down to her height. She approached this girl as she would a frightened animal. “My name is Sansa, Sansa Stark. What’s yours?”

The girl mumbled something that Sansa didn’t quite catch. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

The girl was silent for a moment longer until she lifted her head - and that’s when Sansa recognized, “J-Jeyne. I-I think my name is Jeyne.”

“Jeyne . . . Jeyne Poole?” Sansa asked in disbelief. “Is that you?”

Jeyne coughed. “Yes, my lady.”

“Oh, my dearest Jeyne.” Sansa went to go embrace her long-lost friend until she saw the look of terror on her face. “Oh,” she said, leaning back. “You’ve been through something awful, haven’t you?”

Tears shone in Jeyne’s eyes. “Yes, my lady.”

Sansa held nothing but sadness in her eyes for her old best friend and asked gently, “Let’s go up to my rooms, hm? I’ll draw you up a nice bath and get you some clean clothes, okay?”

Jeyne nodded, inching towards Sansa, as though she would die if she moved out of her hiding spot. Sansa extended her hand, asking her, “May I touch you?” to which she got a small ‘yes’. 

Jeyne let her hand fall into Sansa’s soft one and slowly but surely she convinced her to come out of her hiding place. 

Sansa wrapped her cloak around the frail girl’s shoulders and supported most of her weight all the way up Sansa’s rooms. Every time someone would pass them in the halls Jeyne would whimper and bury her face in Sansa’s side while Sansa would send an angry glare towards him or her.

At long last they arrived in Sansa’s room, where she quickly commanded a passing handmaiden to prepare a bath and set out some clean clothes. A few moments later Jeyne settled into the warm water and let Sansa wash and brush her hair.

Sansa was appalled at the state of Jeyne’s body. It was worse than what she’d originally thought and she felt a grim sense of happiness that the man who had done this to her was now rotting in the dungeons below their feet.

The smaller girl didn’t relax at all during this time, but the tension left her pale shoulders as Sansa slowly brushed out all the tangles from her brown hair, making it shine like it did when they were children.

Afterwards when Sansa meant to leave her so she could get dressed Jeyne gripped her arm and begged her to stay. That she didn’t want to be alone as obvious and so Sansa stayed with her.

Jon, newly named King in the North, came to ask for her advice later on that evening but Jeyne begged her not to leave her alone, even if it was just a moment. Sansa explained the situation to Jon quietly while Jeyne hid under the covers. He nodded, looking both grim and melancholy and departed. Sansa joined Jeyne underneath the covers where the younger girl wrapped herself around her and fell asleep. 

The nightmares that woke her that night were nothing like Sansa had ever experienced. They were nightmares that came from the deepest form of suffering a person could live through.

And yet as days passed Jeyne’s body healed and to a certain extent, her mind. For weeks she wouldn’t dare leave Sansa’s room and would hardly leave her side unless Sansa had other business to attend to. They slept side-by-side every night. 

Weeks turned into months and Jeyne continued to recover. She ventured outside her and Sansa’s rooms, mostly to the godswood but sometimes to speak with Jon or Arya Stark, who had returned to Winterfell unannounced one afternoon with all the names crossed off her list. But her favorite person remained Sansa.

After a year Jeyne had returned to some semblance of her former self, though she was still plagued by nightmares and flinched whenever someone would move too fast around her. But, she was kind and intelligent and a true lady. She gave input on matters of the North when Sansa and Jon had no other solutions and sometimes came to his small council meetings. She was flawed, but everything that Sansa had wanted since she was a child with her at Winterfell.

And Sansa found that she loved her dearly. They’d both come so far in the last half-dozen years that Sansa couldn’t imagine anyone understanding her better than the strong woman she’d known since she was a child. 

And one day, after two years, Jeyne finally kissed her.

As the years passed the both of them continued to recover because of the love that they bore the other and became more of the women they were meant to be.


End file.
